Summer reading may be the last thing on college students’ minds as school lets out, but thanks to the American Enterprise Institute students now have a fun way to refresh their knowledge on conservative values that seem to be left out from college classrooms.
Outlying the free enterprise system in such a way that students’ eyes won’t glaze over halfway through the first paragraph, the Values and Capitalism series is the perfect way for young conservatives especially to gear up to learn about policy issues in order to combat liberalism seeping into their professors’ classrooms.
Written with the help of college students, the latest books, “Economic Growth: Unleashing the Potential to Human Flourishing” and “The Constitution: Understanding America’s Founding Document,” are a surefire way to help college students easily understand conservative values. While the books are available for $9.95 in paperback form, Amazon is also selling the Kindle version at an affordable price of $3.00.
The American Enterprise Institute has added two new books to its Values and Capitalism series specifically geared at teaching college students the concepts of a free enterprise system and how those values influence public policy decisions. AEI has already released 10 of the 13 books it plans to issue as part of the Values and Capitalism series, including the two news books on the Constitution and Economics. A representative from AEI said the think tank plans to release the final three by the end of the summer.
While AEI scholars are the primary authors of the ten books, having the advice of the college students and professors helps the think tank make sure that the lessons discussed are digestible to a college sophomore or junior, according to Josh Good, the director of the Values and Capitalism Initiative at the AEI.
“We are increasingly using short videos to communicate a message in ways that busy students today can appreciate,” Good said.
Topics discussed in the books include social security, environmentalism, energy and taxes.
“We try to have some variety of policy and economic topics covered,” he added. “We try to build a series, we want a variety of topics covered.”
Good and his colleagues at the think tank visit 15 to 16 schools annually in order to enlist the help needed to write the college-based books. After all, college students are “the ones that know their campuses. If the students aren’t involved, then our contribution to a large conversation is limited,” noted Good.
Of the two books recently released, “The Constitution: Understanding America’s Founding Document” is the easiest to get through and the easiest to understand. Especially when coupled with the videos on the Values and Capitalism website this monograph serves as a quick reminder of just what makes up the Constitution and reminds readers why exactly it is important. As far as summer reading go, it earns its A+.
On the other had, the Values and Capitalism book on Economic Growth was well-written but not quite as easy to understand, especially for anyone not majoring in economics. Pairing the book with some of the videos, however, earned this book its C+.
The initiative also hosts a conference every summer at the AEI’s Washington, D.C. headquarters to help organize campus events and panels featuring book authors.
